Top dressing

The weather held for us today and we managed to get the big greens top dressed.   We brushed the sand in and we will continue to work the sand into the core holes during the week.

The fairways and tees have also been cut this had tidied them up.

Finished coring

We finished coring the big course greens today.  The disruption to the golfer will be minimal as the hole size is small.   Weather dependant we will hopefully top dress tomorrow (Wednesday).

We also starting cutting the tees and fairways.  The tee markers have also been finished in preparation for the opening game.

Coring

We starting coring the big greens today with a 3/8" side ejector tine.  As you will see from the photos the impact is minimal.   We have just got greens 11 to 18 to finish tomorrow and weather permitting we will top dress on Wednesday. 

Roller

The roller came out today for its first time this year after its winter hibernation.   The greens are now at 5mm they will stay this height until we start to see some consistent strong growth.

REMEMBER AND FIX PITCHMARKS!!  The greens are still in the soft side, please have some consideration for other golfers.

Wee greens

The wee greens have been pencil tined and top dressed.  Hopefully the fine weather continues and we can core and topdress the big greens next week.

We have also continued to reinstate the bunkers.  So far we have around 2/3rds of the bunkers back in play.  We are taking our time on them to ensure they are in top notch condition for the season ahead.

Prep

The course is quite wet underfoot just now with all the rain we've had,  this has resulted in maintenance to greens being at a minimum as to not stress out the plant when the green are softer.  The forecast is looking dry for the rest of the week, we will get the greens cut for the weekend.  Hopefully the dry weather continues into next week for coring and top dressing.

We have carried on getting the bunkers back in play.   This is a slow process as they have not been properly edged in a couple of years because of the construction work last season.  We are shaping,  stone picking and adding sand as required.   We have had 60 tonne of (30 tonne) top dressing and (30 tonne) bunker sand delivered.

We have continued to trap moles hopefully they will start to become less of a pest as we get into the season.

First feed

The greens have had there first feed of the year with a c-complex 5-2-10.  This will strengthen the greens going into the season and we plan to put a core (8mm) into the greens week commencing the 23rd March.   The feed will help the greens to visually recover.   The surface will have very little disturbance as the core hole isn't to invasive.  The greens will be top dressed after the coring.

We have also finished edging all the bunkers and through next week or so we will look to top up the bunkers with sand and reinstate for the new season.

Painting

Steve taking advantage of some wet weather and giving the tee markers a paint.